News:

"There is a terrible desperation to the increasingly pathetic rationalizations from the climate denial camp. This comes as no surprise if you take the long view; every single undone paradigm in history has died kicking and screaming, and our current petroleum paradigm 🐉🦕🦖 is no different. The trick here is trying to figure out how we all make it to the new ⚡ paradigm without dying ☠️ right along with the old one, kicking, screaming or otherwise." - William Rivers Pitt

Why the 1% is responsible for more than 80% of humanity's carbon footprint and why Homo sapiens is doomed unless the 1% lead the way in a sustainable life style.

By A. G. Gelbert

Today humanity faces the fact that the parasitic relationship of Homo sapiens with the biosphere is depleting the resources hitherto relied on to maintain a standard of living somewhere above that of other earthly hominids like the chimps or gorillas that are, unlike us, engaged in a symbiotic relationship with the biosphere. The chimps engage in rather brutal wars with other chimp tribes where the victors set about to kill and eat very young chimps of the vanquished tribe. This is clearly a strategy to gain some advantage by killing off the offspring of the competition. It cannot be, in and of itself, considered morally wrong or evil behavior.

Dominance behavior and territoriality between same sex and opposite sexes also can be filed under the category of "successful behavior characteristics" for species perpetuation. Behavior that appears on the surface to have no species perpetuation purpose (like male chimps humping less dominant males or sexually mature adolescent seals, locked out of mating by bulls with huge harems, violently thrashing, and often killing, small seal pups that stray into their area) are a function of hormone biochemistry, not good or evil.

Some scientists might say this is just Darwinian behavior to winnow out the less flexible, less intelligent or weaker members of a species. I don't agree. I believe it is a downside of hormones that distracts species from more productive behavior but unfortunately cannot be avoided if you are going to guarantee the survival of a species by programming in strong sex drives.

I repeat, excessive aggression or same sex sexual activity as a dominance display is a downside to the "strong sex drive" successful species perpetuation characteristic. This "downside", when combined with a large brain capable of advanced tool making, can cause the destruction of other species through rampant predation and poisoning of life form resources in the biosphere.

The Darwinian mindset accepts competition among species in the biosphere, where species routinely engage in fighting and killing each other for a piece of the resource pie, as a requirement for the survival of the fittest. Based on this assumption, all species alive today are the pinnacle of evolution.

Really? How does a meteor impact fit into this "survival of the fittest" meme? It doesn't. Why? Because any multicellular organism can easily be wiped out by random, brute force, natural catastrophes like a meteor impact or extensive volcanism. Darwinists are quite willing to accept the random nature of the initial creation of single celled life on earth (even though the latest advances in science show that any cell is an incredibility and irreducibly complex piece of biomachinery that absolutely HAS to have several parts working in unison or none of them work at all) but refuse to accept that the present multispecies survival is just as random.

It's more like "survival of the luckiest" than "survival of the fittest". From a strictly Darwinian perspective, the extremophiles are the real pinnacle of evolution because of their ability to survive just about anyhting that is thrown at them. There is a type of Archaebacteria that can live in an almost 32% salt concentration called halophiles. Halophiles can be found anywhere with a concentration of salt five times greater than the salt concentration of the ocean, such as the Great Salt Lake in Utah, Owens Lake in California, the Dead Sea, and in evaporation ponds. [

Carbon assimilation by Halococcus salifodinae, an archaebacterial

If you want to talk about survival of the fittest, look at this humble organism: Halococcus is able to survive in its high-saline habitat by preventing the dehydration of its cytoplasm. To do this they use a solute which is either found in their cell structure or is drawn from the external environment. Special chlorine pumps allow the organisms to retain chloride to maintain osmotic balance with the salinity of their habitat. The cells are cocci, 0.6-1.5 micrometres long with sulfated polysaccharide walls.

The cells are organtrophic, using amino acids, organic acids, or carbohydrates for energy. In some cases they are also able to photosynthesize.

Halococcus archaea

This primitive life form is organtrophic AND, not or, in some cases, photosynthetic!Now that's what I call a life form able to handle just about any catastrophe thrown at it.

The more complex a life form becomes, the less flexible, adaptable and the more fragile it becomes. That is why I think the Darwinian approach to species interaction in the biosphere severely understates the fragility of "higher" organisms. Just as a type of fungus can infect the brain of an ant species to climb before it dies and thereby aid in fungal sporulation, it is not beyond the realm of possibility that the symbiotic bacteria that constitute a high percentage of the human genes (we cannot metabolize our food without them so they are an inseparable part of being a human) actually drove our evolution to simply to aid in the spread of the bacteria. No, I don't believe that for a second but it shows that Darwinian "logic" can be used to claim the exact opposite of what the Darwinians claim is the "fittest" species.

Laugh if you want, but which is a higher organism, the fungus or the ant?

A recent article in "The Scientist" explored the possibility that human evolution (evolution, of course, must include human intelligent development of advanced tool making for war, transportation and food resource exploitation) can be explained as bacteria driven. We may be a mobile expression of symbiotic bacteria trying to spread all over the biosphere by ensuring their human hosts do whatever it takes to blanket the planet for God and bacteria (not necessarily in that order )!

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It is estimated that there are 100 times as many microbial genes as human genes associated with our bodies. Taken together, these microbial communities are known as the human microbiome.

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These findings have the potential to change the landscape of medicine. And they also have important philosophical and ethical implications.

A key premise of some microbiome researchers is that the human genome coevolved with the genomes of countless microbial species. If this is the case, it raises deep questions about our understanding of what it really means to be human.

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If the microbiome, on a species level, coevolved with the human genome and, on an individual level, is a unique and enduring component of biological identity, then the microbiome may need to be thought of more as “a part of us” than as a part of the environment.

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More important in the context of ethical considerations is the possibility that if the adult microbiome is indeed relatively stable, then such early childhood manipulations of the microbiome may be used to engineer permanent changes that will be with the child throughout life. There is thus the potential that an infant’s microbiome may be “programmable” for optimal health and other traits.2

The article assumes WE are the ones that could engage in the "programming". It doesn't mention WHO EXACTLY was doing all that "programming" during our alleged evolution.

There is a greater quantity of microbial genes than what are considered "human" genes but it's really just one package. Genes drive genetics and evolutionary traits, do they not? I made a big joke about it in the article comments:

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Perhaps the scientific nomenclature for "us versus them" organism energy transfer relationships need to be expanded upon; terms such as parasitic, commensal, symbiotic, etc. don't address the fact that the 'them' is really a part of "us". Pregnant women don't think of their future children as parasites (which is what they technically are - even the beefed up immune system the future moms get is a function of that short lived organism, the placenta). Perhaps we are just some giant "pre-frontal cortex" type of ambulatory appendage which exists for the purpose of spreading bacterial colonies.

Oh, the irony of self-awareness and tool making intelligence being an evolutionary device in the service of getting that bacterial colony to vault over the edge of the giant petri dish called Earth. Can you picture the scientific community awarding Escherichia coli a PhD? Dr. E Coli, you are the best part of us!

We must now bow and scrape to the pinnacle of evolution, the reigning king of Darwinian evolutionary competition, that fine fecal fellow, Dr. Escherichia coli.

Now some folks out there on Wall Street might take offense to being outcompeted by Dr. E. coli. They might even say it's a shitty deal! Others will have no problem relegating Wall Streeters and the rest of the 1% to the category of "lower life forms" in comparison to gut bacteria even if the other 99% of Homo sap are included.

A commenter named, Lee Davis was not amused by the implications of research in the direction the article was pointing:

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Absolutely. "Manage" the Earth's biodiversity at your own peril. Destroy the rainforests at your own peril. Acidify the ocean with CO2 at your own peril. I read "Science and Survival" by Barry Commoner in 1964. Since then, human "management" of the planet has continued apace, with little regard for long term consequences. The only thing he called attention to that was actually changed was the halt in atmospheric nuclear testing, but we've managed to replace that pollution with the exhaust from nuclear power plant meltdowns. Half-assed demigods we certainly are, not playing with a full deck and with little understanding of how the game is played. Of course, we THINK we know it All now...and if we don't, our computing machines certainly do.

An estimated 160,000 families own 70% of the land in England, according to 2012 estimates. This ownership rate is equivalent to less than 1% of the total population.

The history of such a limited portion of the English population being landowners is thought to date to 1067, when William the Conqueror claimed all land as monarch property and then distributed it to his allies.

Land in England is generally kept among the aristocratic families and handed down each generation, rather than being sold.

No wonder our leaders tell us not to worry our little heads about our wars --just support those troops, go shopping, and keep waving that flag.

Snippet 1:

The War of 1812 is sometimes portrayed as a minor dust-up with Britain, involving the temporary occupation and burning of our capital, but it really was about crushing Indians on the frontier and grabbing their land.

The Mexican-American War was another land grab, this time for the benefit of slaveholders.

The Spanish-American War was a land grab for those seeking an American empire overseas, while World War I was for making the world “safe for democracy” -- and for American business interests globally.

Even World War II, a war necessary to stop Hitler and Imperial Japan, witnessed the emergence of the U.S. as the arsenal of democracy, the world’s dominant power, and the new imperial stand-in for a bankrupt British Empire.

Korea? Vietnam? Lots of profit for the military-industrial complex and plenty of power for the Pentagon establishment.

Consider one more definition of war: not as politics or even as commerce, but as societal catastrophe. Thinking this way, we can apply Naomi Klein's concepts of the " shock doctrine" and "disaster capitalism" to it. When such disasters occur, there are always those who seek to turn a profit.

Most Americans are, however, discouraged from thinking about war this way thanks to the power of what we call “patriotism” or, at an extreme, “superpatriotism” when it applies to us, and the significantly more negative “nationalism” or “ultra-nationalism” when it appears in other countries.

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We’re discouraged from reflecting on the uncomfortable fact that, as “our” troops sacrifice and suffer,others in society are profiting big time . Such thoughts are considered unseemly and unpatriotic.

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-- President Calvin Coolidge, that is. “The business of America is business,” he declared in the Roaring Twenties. Almost a century later, the business of America is war, even if today’s presidents are too polite to mention that the business is booming.

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As Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky pithily observed, “You may not be interested in war, but war is interested in you.” If war is combat and commerce, calamity and commodity, it cannot be left to our political leaders alone -- and certainly not to our generals.

Leaving the improbably strange hypothesis of bacterial driven evolution, which stands the concept of the purpose of intelligence and toolmaking on its head for a moment, consider human society and sexual dimorphism.

Female and male pheasant

Female Argiope appensa spider is bigger

[Mallard ducks - The male has the green colored head

Dimorphism just means that, when there are two sexes in a species, they are different in some way. The difference can be size, color, etc.

In humans, as we well know, "mars" and "venus" differences are not just about physical characteristics like body strength and pelvic size. Those hormones affect behavior far removed from mating rituals.

Freud thought EVERYTHING was about sex but most would agree today that we aren't that mindless. Is the aggressive, testosterone driven male human responsible for the mess we have made of things or are both sexes equally culpable? I think both sexes share the blame equally.

Are women superior to men? Would women have, whether driven by their microbial genes or not, somehow avoided pushing the biosphere to the point that doomed themselves and many other species had they been "in charge" instead of men? Of course not! Who, exactly, raised human male children since we've been around? Who trained them in most activities prior to reaching adolescence?

The roles women had in primitive societies were many and varied including some where they ran the show. Women have been just as capable of mass slaughter when leading armies as men, though this has never been the norm. The relationship of mankind to the biosphere has been parasitic but the relationship of the two sexes to each other has been, although certainly asymmetrical in regard to power, strength and dominance, unquestioningly symbiotic.

There are those who equate historical female submission to a form of slavery. This is not now, or ever was, true. Large differences in strength don't just make it easier to lord it over the weaker sex. In a primitive society, these differences make for stable rolls for both sexes.

Consider that Homo sapiens would have died out long ago if both sexes had equal strength. A female bodybuilder injects testosterone into her body to build up muscle. Nature has selected women to be, on the average, physically weaker. And mind you, for most of our existence, it has been ALL ABOUT who is bigger and stronger.

Why hasn't that changed now that, with industrialization and modern weapons, women have the physical ability to assume leadership roles in society that would, theoretically, save us from ourselves due to women's less aggressive nature?

Because they aren't "cursed" with testosterone! Women are every bit as smart as men. The default setting of a human embryo is female. That is the basic template. It's the hormonal changes triggered by the male chromosome that modifies the default female setting. All males are initially females that receive a hormone bath and become males.

The fetus itself, regardless of the fact that it starts out as a female, is a "take no prisoners" parasitic invader. The placenta fools the mother's immune system into not rejecting the foreign body (sometimes that doesn't work and the fetus dies - RH factor problems) even as it strengthens the mother's immune system to protect the fetus and the mother during gestation.

Through the placenta, the fetus sends waste into the mother's bloodstream and takes oxygen and nutrients that it needs, regardless of whether the mother does or doesn't have enough of them. Pregnant women can become anemic or lose too much calcium and be in danger of breaking bones because when the fetus needs something, it just TAKES IT.

If the fetus is male, aggression and territoriality come with the testosterone during and after he grows to manhood. So, the idea that if we could just put all the women in charge and we would have peace and harmony is never going to fly because, as long as testosterone is around, men will prevent it. The enemy is not "HE". The enemy is failure by BOTH sexes in the human power structure to envision environmental collapse from rampant resource extraction.

So, are we doing all this because our microbial DNA just wants to spread and spread and we are really just gut bacteria robots? I don't think so. Mankind got into trouble with the biosphere when he got carried away with his tool making. To a degree, we appear to be fouling our nest and dooming ourselves to extinction because we quite literally cannot stop (industrially, not physically speaking) "****ting" where we "eat".

The biomass of humans is smaller than that of all the ant species on earth yet they don't have a carbon footprint problem.

We have a serious carbon footprint problem coupled with a lot of biosphere poisoning. The media love to remind us of this. But here is where the "**** where you eat" metaphor breaks down. Carbon footprint is about poison, not feces. Seven billion humans could quite conceivably make excellent use of their humanure to eliminate the need for chemical fertilizers and much of the wasted water used in sewage treatment.

It 's a very convenient dodge to claim the solution to our problem is to reduce the population. The false claim is made that then all those cars and trucks wouldn't ruin the planet and the biosphere could have a chance. That is a "solution" that only solves about 20% of the pollution problem and leaves the real heavyweights (about 80% of the pollution), industry and military operated of, by and for the 1% elite, out. That is where the major carbon footprint IS. For those who are shaking their heads, go look at those U.N. stats on how many people out there are living on 2 dollars a day and tell me THEY are the problem.

They aren't, no matter what Bill Gates says. The combined feces of all the ants and every other life form out there, far, far exceeds how much we defecate. As RE, myself and many others here have correctly pointed out, the people at the top refuse to accept responsibility for their horrendous attack on the biosphere and are trying to shift the blame on the rest of us. Those of us little piggies in the USA and Europe are the favorite whipping BOYS of those who say we 55k or less (median income in the USA at present) share almost as much as the 1% in the pollution blame.

They hasten to add that depopulation, especially in the piggy countries like ours, is rational. I would support it if it was rational but it is irrational because it fails to deal with, and make an example of, the worst offenders FIRST. People will not give up their pickup trucks until Warren Buffett gives up his jets and multiple houses. The fact that a few of us have reduced our carbon footprint voluntarily as an act of conscience does not mean that most aren't still Bernays brainwashed. What we need is a detailed map like this one of UK for the USA:

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Experian have found a direct link between wealth and willingness to embrace a green agenda; those most concerned about climate change tend to live in the wealthiest parts of the country.

Poorer and greener

But here's the rub. The company has also found that the richest constituencies... are also the most polluting.2

And that's just the homes. Try adding the carbon footprint piggery these rich have added to their homes with stock portfolios, ownership of retail space, factories, ships, office buildings, jets, etc.The 55K or less crowd have none of these things. At any rate wages don't even begin to tell the real carbon footprint piggery story; the real story is in who owns what. More on this later.

Here's a breakdown of carbon footprint by income decile in Sweden, a country with far less extremes in wealth dstribution than the USA. Notice that the top decile have nearly 6 times the carbon footprint of the lower decile. 3

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The figure illustrates three types of emissions presented by adult equivalents. The direct emissions come from the household’s consumption (the private consumption) of fuel and heating. The indirect emissions come from the production of goods and services in the Swedish private consumption. International indirect emissions come from the production of goods and services consumed in Swedish households, before being imported. All three types of emissions above sum up to the total emissions from private consumption in Sweden.3

In the USA, the per capita CO2 emissions of about 21 metric tonnes is VERY misleading. (This data is about 5 years ol and. as of 2012, is much lower) This paper studies the differences in emissions from state to state without addressing income levels.

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If U.S. per capita carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions were equal to those of its most populous state, California, global CO2 emissions would fall by 8 percent. If, instead, U.S. per capita emissions equaled those of Texas, the state with the second-largest population, global emissions would increase by 7 percent.

What makes Californians’ emissions so different from those of Texans, and from U.S. average emissions? And are the factors that explain these differences amenable to replication as policy solutions?4

If you live in any one of the following states (or D.C), your per capita CO2 emissions are less than 10 metric tonnes:

NY, DC, OR, CA, RI, WA, VT, NH, AZ, CT. In Vermont, direct residential of about 3 tons is an average. Just one mansion here can equal 4 or five 2,000 sq. ft. houses and the small homes like mine with less than 1,000 sq. ft. are much lower. People like myself, and there are lots of them here, are probably not running a carbon footprint above 3 metric tons due, in addition to having less house to heat, to driving less than 2,000 miles a year.

But what is published is the national 21 metric tons. NY's per capita footprint appears the lowest in the nation at around 7. That's obviously not taking into account the Wall Street Banks and investors in NY that own stock in retail space and just about every other high carbon footprint venture in the USA including weapons contractors. I'll wager NY's would be double AK's 34, the state with maximum per capita footprint, if the real estate throughout the country that the banks owned (Bernie Sanders said it was 60% of the country's wealth) was figured in.

Since the study just looks at homes and not the money the rich spend to "green up" their homes with geothermal (remember Bush's ranch?) or PV while they own stock in and support weapons contractors and dirty industries elsewhere, it is expected that the study would come up with this gem:

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The lack of correlation between income per capita and transportation and electricity emission per capita demonstrates that, at least among states of the U.S., there is no rigid relationship between affluence and emissions.10

Similar incomes can be associated with very different levels of emissions. It is possible — as evidenced by the contrast between California and Texas — to enjoy the typical American lifestyle with per capita emissions that are widely divergent from the U.S. mean.4

The above statement is an excellent example of scientific blinders in the service of raw wealth. The hypermobility alone of these rich would skew their footprint up (lots of vehicles of all sizes) if those engaged in this study had bothered to count boats, cars, airplanes, etc. They do, however, provide a sensible explanation of why states like Vermont keep their carbon footprint relatively low:

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Information about policies that have succeeded in reducing emissions in some states should be circulated to the rest of the country. How have some states managed to reduce their emissions well below the national average? In broad strokes, states with low per capita emissions:" Drive less per person and have, on average, better fuel economy;" Use less electricity per person in their homes;" Have higher gasoline and electricity prices;" Rely more on public transportation; and" Use less oil for heating and less coal for electricity generation.

What does our analysis say about the difference between per capita emissions in California and Texas? Transportation emissions are almost one and a half times as great in Texas as in California.4

WHY don't these carbon footprint researchers look at this kind of data:

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FAA statistics show the number of U.S. business jet flights grew 11 percent in 2010, after plunging 20 percent in 2009. And providers of private jet services are expanding: In March 2011, NetJets (owned by Warren Buffet’s Berkshire Hathaway) placed a $2.8 billion order for 50 new Global business jets from Bombardier, with options for 70 more; last fall, it ordered up to 125 Phenom 300s from Embraer—and it bought Marquis Jet, a marketer of private jet cards. Also in March, CitationAir by Cessna added six 604-mph Citation Xs—which it calls the fastest business jet in the sky—to its fleet of 81 jets, targeting “busy executives and business travelers who often need to be in multiple cities within a compressed timeframe,” a spokesman says. XOJET has added to its fleet as well and has hired 45 new pilots.5

Does anybody want to take a stab at what umpteen executive jets used EXCLUSIVELY by the 1% do to the USA carbon footprint? I know a little something about airplanes. I never flew a jet for hire but I flew Piper Navajos for a year or so. Each engine used 18 gallons per HOUR. Now when people start talking about all those J6P pickup trucks out there while ignoring executive jets, I sigh. The carbon footprint of those jets is massive.

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How much greater are the emissions from executive jets? I am indebted to HalogenGuides Jets, "the insider's guide to private aviation", for doing the stats.They reviewed 10 popular private jets using emissions stats provided by TerraPass, the offset company used by Chief Executive Air. The planes ranged from the Gulfstream 400, which burns up 32l of fuel a minute and can carry up to 19 passengers, to the Learjet 40XR, which burns more than 13l a minute to carry a maximum of five passengers.

HeliumReport converts this fuel burn into carbon dioxide emissions per hour. If we assume the plane is fully loaded with passengers, they mostly come in at between 200-300kg of carbon dioxide put into the atmosphere per passenger per hour. But of course, the purpose of having your own jet is that you are not stuck with silly cost-cutting exercises like filling every seat on the plane.

I know of no analysis of how full private jets normally fly, but let's assume they are mostly half full. That gives emissions per passenger-hour of 400-600kg of carbon dioxide. That's about half a tonne.How does that compare with a regular commercial flight? For one from London to Paris, which is roughly an hour, TerraPass reckons 59kg per passenger per hour, or little more more than a 10th as much as flying your own, half full, Learjet.

If you are interested in carbon emissions, these numbers are scary. An hour's flight on a private jet will emit more carbon dioxide than most African do in a whole year.6

The African CO2 footprint referred to is about one metric ton but let's compare it with our "rich" Americans making anywhere from 55k a year on down that only see executive jets in movies. In 20 hours of of flying, an afterthought for the jet set 1% of the USA, they use up one yearly quota of J6P's "greedy irresponsible pig" footprint. Now count the executive jets and count the total hours they fly each year and you will absolutely gasp at the carbon footprint the 1% is happily spewing into our biosphere. There are over 10,000 private jets in the USA as of 2008.

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How private jet travel is straining the system, warming the planet, and costing you money.7

And this is JUST THE EXECUTIVE JETS part of their piggery!And Buffett thinks it's A-OKAY to add more.

China's per capita carbon footprint, in the meantime, has become greater than that of several U.S. states, including Vermont.

I am certain, as is the case in the USA, that the Chinese 1%'s carbon footprint is orders of magnitude above the Chinese version of our "J6P". Those who love to point at J6P piggery in the USA should drop that broad brush and start looking at per capita carbon footprint and, when available, decile breakdown of that per capita carbon footprint. Please observe in this table that the per capita carbon footprint in the USA has been going steadily down over the last decade (as of 2012, it is down to 17.3 metric tons 9) and that there are 11 countries with a higher per capita carbon footprint than the USA.

As a matter of fact, as of the end of 2012, an October of 2013 government press release confirms the USA's carbon emissions have now shrunk to 1994 levels.

Joe Six Pack (J6P) makes a real convenient whipping boy but that does not reflect the facts on the ground even before you account for 1% piggery. What matters is not data points like how much retail space there is in the USA (a huge amount is now empty anyway since 2008) but who OWNS that retail space and all the other large carbon footprint piggery. The wealth breakdown in the USA (as of 2007 - it's even more concentrated at the top now according to senator Bernie Sanders) shows that 1% own 42.7%, the next 19% own 53.7% and the BOTTOM 80% own 7%.10

I am using the financial wealth stats rather than the "net" worth stats because that reflects the sad reality that the 15% attributed to the bottom 80% is now about 7% and the "net" worth of the top 20% matches 2007 financial wealth percentages (The top 20%, but mostly the top 0.5%, have exponentially increased their ownership of everything in the USA since the Greater Depression began in 2007).

The last time I checked, when you OWN something, you are responsible for its carbon footprint. The fact that the predatory capitalist "drug pushers" are out there pushing the consumerist "drug" does not justify blaming the addicts. The addicts must be treated but the priority is to get the pushers off the street. Every addict can go cold turkey and the pushers will adjust by giving the "drug" away really cheap until they hook a new set of addicts. Focusing on the addicts while giving lip service to the evils of the 1% to the point that the addicts are given a 40/60% (99% carbon footprint vs 1% carbon footprint) responsibility ratio in biosphere degradation when it is more like a 20/80% ratio is just plain wrong and doomed to failure. Of course the 1% love this kind of "blame the victim" illogic.

We need a REAL deciles breakdown like they did in Sweden of the CO2 footprint of our population. Here is a look at carbon footprint in cities across the USA. Most of the heavy polluters are east of the Mississippi.11.

US energy use concentration

That's a start but we still need to zero in on stock, high tech toys and real estate ownership as a function of carbon footprint. Maybe then people would get a clearer picture of who the responsible parties for the biosphere degradation are. It is little wonder that no data of this nature is published in the USA. This is the reality that side issues like blaming gender or psychopathy for humanity's biosphere degradation fail to address.

It's really an Occam's razor type problem (a principle urging one to select from among competing hypotheses that which makes the fewest assumptions).Because the 1% are our leaders, the masses of humanity always attempt to imitate what the 1% do, period. When the 1% stop their massive piggery, the small scale piggery of the masses will stop as well. Claiming that the 1% only "do what they do" because the 99% are a bunch of sheep is a half truth. True, we sheep are unfortunately permitting the 1% to parasitically prey on us. But putting the onus on the sheep is "blame the victim" illogic.

The issue is not about gender or the criminal insanity endemic to psychopaths in the 1%; psychopaths are unfortunately represented at all income levels even if they are concentrated at the top. Whether this super aggressive behavior destroying the biosphere is caused by microbes willing us to spread, testosterone in the male of the species or the inability of our big, but still brutish, brains to react to threats on a multigenerational time horizon, the fact remains that the main authors of the rampant biosphere damage are these humans in the 1%.

It's not the 99%'s biomass (e.g. ants have more than humans) that is destroying the biosphere; it's the 1%'s carbon footprint by a huge margin despite their tiny biomass. A detailed study of per capita footprint which includes resource ownership by wealth would conclusively prove that. And as to males of the species being the culprit, the statement, "We have met the enemy, an he is us, and he is "HE", is barking up the wrong tree! Perhaps a world where humans were all females and reproduction was by cloning would be less parasitic and become symbiotic with the biosphere but most women on Earth, not to mention G. I. Joe Testosterone and friends, would take offense to that notion (to put it mildly ).

Putting women in charge, as long as there are men around, will not change our suicidal trajectory. Because the 1% are our leaders, the masses of humanity always attempt to imitate what the 1% do, period. When the 1% stop their massive piggery, the small scale piggery of the masses will stop as well. Claiming that the 1% only "do what they do" because the 99% are a bunch of sheep is a half truth. True, The 1% ARE mostly PARASITIC. But putting the onus on the sheep is "blame the victim" illogic. The less aggressive (the normal 99% that are folded, stapled and mutilated by the 1%) humans are not responsible for what the 1% has conned them into doing.

What, exactly, do you expect from sheep? The 1% pushed, connived, lied and killed anything in their way to BE the 1%. They've got the "Will To Power" on steroids. If all of us had the aggressiveness of the 1%, Homo sapiens would have self destructed long ago. Sexual dimorphism and hormones dictate different levels of strength, aggressivity and dominance in human beings for real and valid species perpetuation purposes.

Nature cares not about egalitarian relationships among opposite sexes or societies (see the moths, ants, spiders, bees, ducks, lions, chimps, etc.); it "cares" about what works to promote the reproduction of a species. Asymmetric power relationships in societies and among the sexes in species aren't democratic but they have more species perpetuation power than horizontal relationships.

That's just the way it is. If you want to "improve" on that model, you'd better but your "God" outfit on and pack a lot of sandwiches because you are bucking up against the biosphere species interrelationship status quo.

The ones who hold the power are ALWAYS in the driver's seat. If they don't adequately react to a threat to the species, it's curtains. The 1% enjoy their RHIP which provide them many privileges but they cannot evade their responsibility.

The 1% don't have to lose their "better to reign in hell than serve in heaven" attitude for mankind to survive; they just have stop believing their own PR.

If they bite the reality bullet and lead the way into sustainable living, we might make it. Otherwise, the fungi, extremophiles and the humble descendants of human microbial bacterial colonies will inherit the Earth. The planet will become hot as hell and only the simplest and toughest life forms will live here.

Send this to someone in the 1% if you know any. Who knows? They might even read it and think about it.

“Responsibility to Protect” is a bogus doctrine designed to undermine the very foundations of international law. It is law rewritten for the powerful. “The structures and laws that underlie the application of R2P exempt the Great Power enforcers from the laws and rules that they enforce on the lesser powers.”

Edward S. Herman

Both the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) and “Humanitarian Intervention” (HI) came into existence in the wake of the fall of the Soviet Union, which ended any obstruction that that contesting Great Power had placed on the ongoing power projection of the United States.In Western ideology, of course, the United States was containing the Soviets in the post-World War II years, but that was ideology. In reality the Soviet Union was always far less powerful than the United States, had weaker and less reliable allies, and was essentially on the defensive from 1945 till its demise in 1991.

The United States was aggressively on the march outward from 1945, with the steady spread of military bases across the globe, numerous interventions, large and small, on all continents, engaged in building the first truly global empire. The Soviet Union was an obstruction to U.S. expansion, with sufficient military power to constitute a modest containing force, but it also served U.S. propaganda as an alleged expansionist threat. With the death of the Soviet Union new threats were needed to justify the continuing and even accelerating U.S. projection of power, and they were forthcoming, from narco-terrorism to Al Qaeda to Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction to the terrorist threat that encompassed the entire planet earth and its outer space.

There was also a global security menace alleged, based on internal ethnic struggles and human rights violations, that supposedly threatened wider conflicts, as well as presenting the global community (and its policeman) with a moral dilemma and demand for intervention in the interests of humanity and justice. As noted, this morality surge occurred at a moment in history when the Soviet constraint was ended and the United States and its close allies were celebrating their triumph, when the socialist option had lost vitality, and when the West was thus freer to intervene. This required over-riding the several hundred year old Westphalian core principle of international relations – that national sovereignty should be respected – which if adhered to would protect smaller and weaker countries from Great Power cross-border attacks. This rule was embodied in the UN Charter, and could be said to be the fundamental feature of that document, described by international law scholar Michael Mandel as ”the world’s constitution.” Over-riding this rule and Charter fundamental would clear the ground for R2P and HI, but it would also clear the ground for classic and straightforward aggression in pursuit of geopolitical interests, for which R2P and HI might supply a useful cover.

It is obvious that only the Great Powers can cross borders in the alleged interest of R2P and HI, a point that is recognized and taken as an entirely acceptable premise in every case in which they have been applied in recent years. The Great Powers are the only ones with the knowledge and material resources to do this ‘benevolent’ global social work. As NATO public relations official Jamie Shea explained in May 1999, when the question came up as to whether NATO personnel might be indicted for war crimes during NATO’s bombing war against Serbia, which seemed to follow from the letter of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) charter: NATO countries “organized” the ICTY and International Court of Justice, and NATO countries “fund these tribunals and support on a daily basis their activities. We are the upholders, not the violators, of international law.” This last is a contestable assertion, but Shea’s other points are clearly valid.

It is enlightening that when a group of independent lawyers submitted an extensive dossier in 1999 showing probable NATO violations of ICTY rules, after a long delay and following open pressure from NATO authorities, the anti-NATO claims were disallowed by the ICTY prosecutor on the ground that with only 496 documented killings of Serbs by NATO bombs “there is simply no evidence of a crime base” for indicting NATO, although the original May 1999 indictment of Milosevic involved a crime base of only 344 deaths. It is of similar interest that International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo declined to prosecute NATO officials for their attack on Iraq in 2003, despite over 249 requests for ICC action, on the ground that here also “the situation did not appear to meet the required threshold of the Statute.”

These two cases illustrate the fact that the structures and laws that underlie the application of R2P (and HI) exempt the Great Power enforcers from the laws and rules that they enforce on the lesser powers. It also exempts their friends and clients. This means that in the real world there is nobody responsible for protecting Iraqis or Afghanis from the United States or Palestinians from Israel. When U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright acknowledged on national TV in 1996 that 500,000 Iraqi children may have died as a result of UN (but really U.S.) -imposed sanctions on Iraq, declaring that U.S. officials felt these deaths were “worth it,” there was no domestic or global reaction demanding the end of these sanctions and the application of R2P or HI on behalf of the victimized Iraqi population. Similarly there was no call for any R2P intervention on behalf of the Iraqis when the United States and Britain invaded Iraq in March 2003, with direct and induced civil war killings of perhaps a million more Iraqis.

When the Canadian-sponsored International Coalition for the Responsibility to Protect considered the Iraq war in relation to R2P, its authors concluded that abuses by Saddam Hussein within Iraq were not of a scope in 2003 to justify an invasion, but the coalition never even raised the question of whether the Iraqi people didn’t need protection from the invaders responsible for the death of vast numbers. They worked from the imperial premise that the Great Power enforcers, even when aggressing in violation of the UN Charter and killing hundreds of thousands, are exempt from R2P as well as the rule of law.

This works from the top of the global power structure on down; Bush, Cheney, Obama, John Kerry, Susan Rice, Samantha Power at the top, then on the way down we have Merkel, Cameron, and Hollande, then further down Ban Ki-Moon and Luis Moreno-Ocampo, and with their power base to be found in the corporate leadership and media. Ban Ki-Moon and his predecessor Kofi Annan have been open servants of the Great NATO Powers, to whom they owe their status and authority. Kofi Annan was an enthusiastic supporter of the NATO attack on Yugoslavia, a believer in the enforcement responsibility of the NATO powers, and keen on the institutionalization of R2P; and Ban Ki-Moon works in the same mode.

This same global power structure also means that ad hoc Tribunals will be formed and used against villains of choice, as well as international courts. Thus when the United States and its allies wanted to dismantle Yugoslavia and weaken Serbia, they were able to use the Security Council in 1993 to establish a tribunal, the ICTY, precisely for this service, which the ICTY carried out effectively. When they wanted to help their client Paul Kagame consolidate his dictatorship in Rwanda, they created a similar tribunal for this service, the ICTR. If these powers want to attack and bring about regime change in Libya, they can get the ICC to accuse Gaddaffi of war crimes speedily and without independent investigation of any charges, and based mainly on anticipations of civilian killings. But as noted, the ICC couldn’t find any basis for action against the invaders of Iraq whose killings of civilians were large-scale and realized, not merely anticipated. There was, in fact, a major World Tribunal on Iraq organized to hear charges against the United States and its allies for their actions in Iraq, but it was privately organized and had a critical anti-war bent, so that although it held hearings in many countries and heard many prestigious witnesses, this tribunal was given negligible attention in the media. (Its final sessions and report in June 2005 were unmentioned in the major U.S, and British media.)

R2P fits snugly into this picture of service to an escalating imperial violence, with the United States and its enormous military-industrial complex engaged in a Global War on Terror and multiple wars, and its NATO arm steadily enlarging and embarked on “out of area” service, despite the ending of its supposed role of containing the Soviet Union. It conveniently premises that the threats that the world needs to address come from within countries, not from cross-border aggression in the traditional mode that the makers of the UN Charter considered of first importance. They are wrong: William Blum lists 35 cases where the United States overthrew governments between 1945 and 2001 (thus not even counting the war-making of George W. Bush and Barak Obama; Blum, Freeing the World to Death [Common Courage, 2005], chaps. 11 and 15)

In the real world, while R2P has a wonderful aura of benevolence, it will be put in play only at the instigation of the Great NATO Powers and it will therefore never be used in the interest of unworthy victims, defined as victims of the Great Powers or their clients (see Manufacturing Consent, chap 2, “Worthy and Unworthy Victims”). For example, it was never invoked to constrain Indonesian violence in its invasion and occupation of East Timor from 1975 onward, although this invasion-occupation accounted for an estimated 200,000 deaths on a population base of 800,000, thus exceeding the proportionate deaths under Pol Pot. In this case the United States gave the invasion a green light, gave further arms to the invaders, and protected them from any UN response. This is a case where the UN Charter was being violated and East Timorese desperately needed protection, but as the United States supported the invader no international response transpired.

It is enlightening and amusing to see that Gareth Evans has been perhaps the leading spokesperson in support of R2P.as an instrument of justice. Evans is a former Foreign Minister of Australia, author of a book on R2P, past president of the International Crisis Group, a co-founder of the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty, and a participant in several reports and debates on R2P. Evans was the Foreign Minister of Australia during the years of Indonesia’s genocidal occupation of East Timor, and in that role Evans honored and feted Indonesian leaders and worked with them in sharing the stolen oil rights of East Timor. (See John Pilger, “East Timor: a lesson in why the poorest threaten the powerful,” April 5, 2012, pilger.com.) So Evans was really a collaborator in a major genocide. Can you imagine the media’s response to a non-NATO human rights campaign that used as spokesperson a Chinese official who had maintained friendly relations with Pol Pot during his most deadly years?

It is enlightening to see how Gareth Evans deals with the criteria for enforcing R2P. In answering questions on this subject at a UN General Assembly session on R2P, Evans appealed to common sense: R2P “defines itself,” and the crimes, including “ethnic cleansing,” are all “inherently conscience-shocking, and by their very nature of a scale that demands a response…It is really impossible to be precise about numbers here.” Evans notes that sometimes modest numbers will suffice: “We remember starkly the horror of Srebrenica… [with only 8,000 deaths]. Was Racak with its 45 victims in Kosovo in ’99 sufficient to trigger the response that was triggered by the international community?” It was sufficient to trigger a response for the simple reason that it helped advance NATO’s ongoing program of dismantlement of Yugoslavia. But Evans dodges answering his own question. You may be sure that Evans does not ask or attempt to explain why there was no triggering of a response to East Timor with its 200,000 or Iraq’s 500,000 plus a million. The politicization of choices here is total, but Evans has apparently internalized the imperial perspective so completely that this huge double standard never reaches his consciousness. But the most interesting fact is that a man with such a record and such blatant bias can be accepted as an authority and his biased perspective is treated with respect.

It is interesting, also, to see how Evans never mentions Israel and Neither Palestine, where ethnic cleansing has been in active process for decades, works openly and is deeply resented by vast numbers across the globe. do other members of the power pyramid suggest Israel-Palestine as an area where consciences are shocked and the nature and scale of abuse demands a response from the “international community.” In order to obtain her U.N. Ambassadorship, Samantha Power thought it was necessary to go before a group of pro-Israel U.S. citizens and assure them, with tears flowing, that she regretted any past suggestions that AIPAC was powerful and that its influence had to be over-ridden for developing a U.S.-interest policy toward Israel and Palestine. She pledged a devotion to Israel’s national security. The world will wait a long time for Power and her bosses to support R2P’s application to ethnic cleansing in Palestine

In sum, the international power structure in the post-Soviet world has worsened global inequality and at the same time increased Great Power interventionism and literal aggression. The increased militarism may have contributed to the growing inequality, but it is also designed and serves to facilitate pacification at home as well as abroad. In this context, R2P and HI are understandable developments, providing a moral cover for actions that would repel many people and constitute a violation of international law if viewed in a cold light. R2P puts aggression in a benevolent light and thus serves as its useful instrument. In short, it is a cynical fraud and a constitution (UN Charter)-buster.

Edward S. Herman

Edward S. Herman is professor emeritus of finance at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania and has written extensively on economics, political economy, and the media. Among his books are Corporate Control, Corporate Power (Cambridge University Press, 1981), The Real Terror Network (South End Press, 1982), and, with Noam Chomsky, The Political Economy of Human Rights (South End Press, 1979), and Manufacturing Consent (Pantheon, 2002).

agelbertWe also need to convince the oligarchy that they need to stop believing their social Darwinist predatory capitalist PR or the biosphere and their descendants are toast.WrenchMonkey agelbert The plutocratic oligarchy cannot be "convinced" of anything. It is composed primarily of essential psychopaths who are devoid of conscience and compassion and immune to reason. They understand only force.Just my opinion

agelbert WrenchMonkeyIf they cannot be convinced that their survival is imperiled by their blindness, arrogance, greed and stupidity, then Homo SAP has had it.

Why?

Excerpt from the article on the 1%'s responsibility:"The issue is not about gender or the criminal insanity endemic to psychopaths in the 1%; psychopaths are unfortunately represented at all income levels even if they are concentrated at the top.

Whether this super aggressive behavior destroying the biosphere is caused by microbes willing us to spread, testosterone in the male of the species or the inability of our big, but still brutish, brains to react to threats on a multigenerational time horizon, the fact remains that the main authors of the rampant biosphere damage are these humans in the 1%.

It's not the 99%'s biomass (e.g. ants have more than humans) that is destroying the biosphere; it's the 1%'s carbon footprint by a huge margin despite their tiny biomass. A detailed study of per capita footprint which includes resource ownership by wealth would conclusively prove that."

"The ones who hold the power are ALWAYS in the driver's seat. If they don't adequately react to a threat to the species, it's curtains. Power cannot be divorced from responsibility. The 1% enjoy their RHIP which provide them many privileges but they cannot evade their responsibility.

That said, The 1% don't have to lose their "better to reign in hell than serve in heaven" attitude for mankind to survive; they just have stop believing their own PR.

If they bite the reality bullet and lead the way into sustainable living, we might make it."The 1%'s Responsibility to Shoulder 80% of the COST of a 100% Renewable Energy World

WrenchMonkey agelbert I'm sorry. I don't think you comprehend the nature of the psychopath. It's not that they won't change their ways, the can't.http://ponerology.com/evil_1.h...

And by the way, 100% renewable energy will not end the destruction of the ecosystem. It still requires and industrial civilisation and industrial civilisation is not sustainable.Just my opinion

You labor under the assumption that 100% of the 1% are composed of psychopaths. I agree with you that psychopaths are incorrigible. I disagree with you that they dominate the 1%, despite the fact they are over-represented in that group.

I never said we would have paradise just because we had 100% renewable energy. I stated that our survival depends on it. It would give us time to bioremediate all the other environmental damage done.

But I realize where you stand on this and I will put it to you in black and white.

Your assumption that you can solve humanity's problems by offing the bad guys is as old as humanity and has never worked.

It's been the siren song of every would be tyrant wooing the masses until he seizes power and double crosses his followers who hoped for a more egalitarian world. It's a comfortable fantasy. Just my opinion and that of the history of "civilization".

Renewable Revolution

WrenchMonkey agelbert I labour under no such assumption and you're being presumptuous by making such a statement. I make a great deal of effort to assume nothing.

I'd suggest you reread the section in Political Ponerology entitled "Spellbinders" beginning on page 155. Or, if you don't have the book, you can read the section titled PONEROLOGY on the website.It's my conclusion that, at this point, the essential psychopath not only dominates the "1%" but, through the power and influence acquired, holds sway in nearly all the patriarchal hierarchies that control the economies and thus the governments of the world's "sovereign" nations and most of those that aren't so sovereign as well.

I'm afraid I must disagree with your conclusions regarding "renewable" energy. These techno-fixes are well meaning but misguided attempts at "saving" our "civilisation", which is the last thing we need to do. They all require the continued extraction and destruction of non-renewable resources in order to maintain the industrialism and market based economies that are destroying the ecosystem.

I'm sorry to contradict, but you actually do not realise where I stand. I neither said nor even implied that humanity's problems can be solved by "offing the bad guys". If that's what you think you've read in my comments, then you've misinterpreted them badly.

In order to actually better understand "where I stand", I suggest you read "Endgame", volumes 1 & 2, "A Language Older Than Words" and "Deep Green Resistance". If you are already familiar with these works and disagree with their premises then you and I will be better served by simply agreeing to disagree. It is incumbent upon neither of us to "convert" the other.

IMHO the solution to our dilemma lies more in prehistory than in the history of our civilisation.

Have a safe and happy holiday insofar as that's possible.

agelbert WrenchMonkey History, not PRE-history, will prove you wrong in the next decade. I hope you are humble enough to accept the truth.

Techno-fixes were never the issue. You didn't read my article, obviously.

The issue, for the last time, is that hierarchy is the natural state of affairs in millions of species on the planet and works quite well, thank you very much. Egalitarian concepts are pipe dreams. You will never have a stable society without a pecking order. You can dream otherwise and believe this, that and the other but you will continue to be frustrated by an unworkable hypothesis.

Mankind is BENEATH the biosphere in the pecking order and will perish if he doesn't GET that. However, within our species, asymmetric power relationships are the ONLY way we can have a stable society. Laugh if you wish.

Yes, I read it. I've read a great many things with which I don't wholly agree. I would have commented but I don't want to "create a free account" to do so.

I even followed a few of the links. Your complete immersion in scientific minutia is a bit too clinical for me. It smacks of absolute certainty, which I find very disconcerting. It's a common mistake among the professional scientific community.

“A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.” Max Planck

While there's much you have to say, regarding the ruling class, the 1%, wall street, etc, with which I can agree, I think your ideological stance, manifested in your absolutism, makes any comprehensive agreement impossible.

It's saddening that I seem to detect a sense of sneering superiority in your comments here and your essays at Renewable Energy World and Renewable Revolution. I have no desire to provoke, offend or dominate you. I simply do not agree with your viewpoint, though I most certainly would defend your right to it.

As I said before, it is incumbent upon neither of us to "convert" the other.Once more and finally, let us agree to disagree without rancour.

agelbert WrenchMonkey " it is incumbent upon neither of us to 'convert' the other."

I agree and without rancor! :>)

Thanks for reading the article.

The piece at Renewable Energy World was the third part. In the earlier parts I went to great pains to show "how it works" as to power relationships in nature. I may appear overly "sure" of myself because I have the backing of the stable behavior and perpetuation of millions of species on this planet. It's not about me or you; it's about those that control the future of our species (i.e. our leaders).

I just write about it hoping one them that is not a psychopath will read it and over rule the crazies. Here at common dreams for at least a decade I have watched the purists, deep ecologists, zealous progressives, and other people I share many viewpoints on, harp on the quixotic view that the only way to solve this mess is to scrap the whole failed paradigm. At first I believed it. But when I looked deeper I realized this was just a form of escapism unrelated to real world solutions.

I was all fired up to "convert" people to the "right" way of thinking. But I was wrong. The only ones that hold our future are not prone to progressive thinking. However, they have been rather "good", as in a fecal bolus floating to the surface of a toilet bowl, of surviving all sorts of calamities in history far better than most of the other Homo saps.

Common Dreamers have cows and kittens every time I tell them that the 1% are part of us, warts and all, and we solve this thing together or we perish. They want to off the Wall Street vermin. It's a fun thought but it won't happen.

Agelbert NOTE:Originally published about a year and a half ago. Since the ATTITUDE of the greedballs among the 1% hasn't changed much, if at all, I have updated it and am republishing it. Now it is even more urgent for the 1% to understand the "nature" of their "nature". :evil4:

What is the 1% and the 1% wannabes up to these days as we approach the event horizon of accelerated environmental collapse? Well, they appear to be building hidey holes.

Quote

The secret world of doomsday shelters

Snippet 1

Quote

Unlike 1950s-era fallout shelters and newer aboveground "safe rooms," meant to protect against storms and home invasions, bunkers are buried at least 6 feet under, in part to shield occupants from nuclear radiation.You can buy a bare-bones shelter for $38,000 uninstalled or spend tens of millions of dollars — and a surprising number do — on a lavish, custom-made subterranean sanctuary.

Bunker builders cite a long list of client fears, from war and terrorism to megastorms and epic earthquakes. But the customers themselves aren't talking. "Secrecy is their defense," says shelter manufacturer Walton McCarthy, of Radius Engineering in Terrell, Texas. Shelter owners don't want neighbors and strangers pounding on the entry hatch in an emergency, he explains.Also, many have installed shelters without building permits. While city and county authorities may disagree, McCarthy maintains that his prefabricated shelters fall outside building codes.

"These have no foundations, so technically don't come under building code. They're self-contained and are not hooked up to the grid."

b]To sidestep nosy neighbors and building authorities, contractors may disguise the projects as swimming pool installations. "The hole is dug on Friday," McCarthy says. "We get there Friday at 5, by Monday it's in, and the neighbors can call whoever they want."[/b]

For those of you that read my post on the rich and their NBC (Nuclear Biological Chemical) filtered doomsday shelters, I was kidding about the filter duration but I wasn't making their existence up.

Snippet 2

Quote

McCarthy entered the field in 1978 as a young mechanical engineer, designing and making concrete shelters, then steel and now fiberglass. He wrote the “U.S. Handbook of NBC Weapon Fundamentals and Shelter Engineering Design Standards.” And he reports that his business generates $30 million to $45 million annually through the sale of 50 to 100 shelters a year. Radius sells to businesses, homeowners, churches and government. Most of the shelters hold 20 people or more and can sustain life for one to five years. Half are sold in the Washington, D.C., area.

The smallest Radius shelter, an eight-person unit, costs $108,000. Here's what you get:

A ribbed, composite cylinder 12 feet wide, 11 feet high and 24 feet long; with no metal parts, it's meant to be undetectable by radar or thermal-detection devices. Your shelter comes with a diesel-powered generator, a toilet and septic tank, a kitchen, plumbing, air filters, a ham radio, a shower, a DVD player and TV, bunks and furnishings. Radius sells preserved food separately.Shipping is extra — about $10,000 from coast to coast, for example — and installation is an additional $20,000 to $25,000. And then there's excavation: The shelter requires a hole 25 feet deep, so it's too big to fit under a home.

You too, can imitate the greedy, calloused and selfish rich. For a sum most middle class folks can afford, you too can purchase some pie in the sky (or is it a mole in the hole?):

Are those that contributed most to our polluted world and dog-eat-dog insane predatory capitalist mindset really stupid enough to believe they can survive the environmental collapse?

After about a year and half of pre-engineering, I switched to aviation and obtained pilot and flight instructor certificates. It was 1967 and I firmly believed their was a bullet in Viet Nam with my name on it so I joined the Air National Guard in the hopes of dodging it. I scored well on the Air Force test that reminded me of those IQ tests they gave us in Kansas when I was a kid with lots of box shapes and pattern recognition type questions so I was given a wide range of job choices. I chose "Link Trainer Technician" because it was aviation related and, being an 11 month school, would teach me a lot about electronics.

I was turned down because I am nearsighted. Even though it was obviously corrected to 20-20 (It's rather difficult to get a pilot's license without proper vision), they claimed my glasses would inhibit my ability to work in enclosed places in the trainer while servicing electronics assemblies. I said I'd get contacts but to no avail. I didn't want to do the grunt work of aircraft mechanic or loading bombs or bullets on fighters so so I ended up training at Lowry AFB in Denver training in the dual AFSC (Air Force Specialty Code) of Intelligence Operations Specialist/Photo Interpreter (16 week school) after basic training in Lackland AFB.

At Lowry I learned how to kill millions of living beings of all sorts with atomic bombs. There was this bombing encyclopedia with radar cross sections of every city in the entire world (USA included). We would figure the megatonnage out to make sure we killed as many of the "enemy" as possible (e.g. two air bursts of 5 megatons spaced about 25 miles apart do more damage than a single 15 megaton air burst). All this was top secret stuff of course but most of that info is declassified now and available on the internet so I'm free to talk about it.

We learned how to spot infrastructure resources from aerial photography (oil refineries and bridges were a favorite) and how best to "take them out". I was an atheist at the time and had accepted the view that human males fight over land, stuff and women whenever they thought they could take one or more of those "items" away from the other guys.

Hey, I was raised by an Army officer. Being a cardboard **** was mandatory in my daddy's world view. Those who have read any of my current thoughts know I woke up to the bankruptcy of such a narrow mindset decades ago. Anyway, this is how I learned interrogation techniques (e.g. Mutt and Jeff - good cop bad cop) and what NBC filters are.

The US Government has LOTS of excellent underground facilities equipped with years of human survival need supplies and NBC filtration. So does Russia. The Swiss have some super doomsday shelters as well complete with modern hospital equipment. All the "first" world countries probably have callously taken steps to protect the decision makers among them. I say "callously" because underground hospitals with the latest equipment don't just sit there while people on the surface excluded from the catbird seat get average to poor health care, just for starters.

They don't just throw a bunch of canned beans in a hole and leave it at that; these facilities are constantly maintained and the supplies and equipment upgraded.

No, I can't prove it. I am extrapolating from my observations of rich people in the thrall of egotism greed and hubris.

Yep, I have some personal experiences with rich people. No they aren't at the elite decision making level (although I did personally met with one of their lackeys, General Westmoreland, for a brief one way conversation about not pissing upstream when he learned I had written home about hazing at West Point) but I can relate to you what I believe is a common mindset among the rich and you will see what I mean.

I have an older sister who became a millionaire in the stock market. She also claims to be a Christian. She's a world class hypocrite that embraced "prosperity preaching" from televangelist con artists. She is quite willing to pray for all those poor and donate a tax deductible (of course!) pittance every now and then but firmly believes it's their fault for being poor and prosperity is a mark of "God's blessing". She would run naked over a frozen lake to pick up a nickel. I learned some time ago that my old man abused her sexually when she was 13 so I try to make amends for her "a liberal is someone that has never been mugged" worldview.

The bottom line for her is that she was used so she used any damned thing out there, including religion to "get hers" though she won't admit it. Daddy was a predator and he passed it on to his oldest daughter (in a different form; she never abused her children). I say without a hint of sarcasm or humor that I hope God has mercy on her.

Nevertheless, she is still a hypocrite and is, through her embrace of the status quo, complicit in the harm being visited on the biosphere. Her concept of good stewardship is limited to her bank account. Her pro-war stand is revealing about how Orwellian mainstream "Christianity" has become. I once sent her an article in protest of the Iraq war of a two year old girl screaming in terror at a checkpoint in Iraq where our soldiers had just killed her parents and there was blood all over the place. She sent me a picture of her two year old grandaughter.

My Friend Steve the Millionaire

My other experience with a millionaire is with a fellow named Steve who was a high school classmate. His dad had a chain of department stores. Though we weren't friends in high school, Steve became my friend later in life during my atheist period. Steve liked to play monopoly, eat Oreo cookies and drink milk in his $400,000 house (1970s).

He was sure about everything and uncertain about nothing. He had a pair of Bull Mastiff dogs in his back yard and a collection of weapons (and a room just for them) that was quite impressive. He bought my old man's Army 45 because he liked having some "stopping power" available at all times (He "carried").

If you get the impression he was an arrogant, overbearing prick, then you are wrong. He was actually quite low key and affable in his mannerisms. As to his phallic symbol worship, you would never know it from his demeanor and voice. He was soft spoken and never cross in facial expressions. He could discuss any topic, no matter how different from his world view with aplomb.

He was also a henpecked husband who's wife Bonnie (another former classmate of mine) was a real handful. She made no effort to hide the fact that she had the hots for me and Steve made no effort to hide the fact that he had the hots for my former wife. Eventually that ended the friendship because wife swapping was never my thing and I would not hear of it. Bonnie and I had almost been an item before she married but I had my own rules about messing with married women and I managed to keep them.

But I digress. Steve, when he was winning at monopoly would say, "Money makes money". At other times when we discussed problems of wealth distribution in society he would say that, if all the wealth was evenly distributed, within 5 years present wealth distribution of the most money at the top with peanuts at the bottom would be established again because, you see, that is the proper social equilibrium of humanity, etc.

I would remind him that unethical practices like the 150% markup on cost (or more) that he would brag about to me in the department stores weren't right when the poor were the main targets. He would say that the poor would do exactly the same thing in his shoes (To his credit, he never got angry or tried to spin my charge as being false, envious or vindictive. Steve was wrong but he wasn't a hypocrite). By the way, I got a great discount on a TV and TV table from him so I didn't exactly have clean hands then.

Steve was born with a silver spoon in his mouth but never doubted that he was just lucky even though he held the conflicting view that the rich have some innate money making skill that the rest of the populace don't share. I guess he resolved this obvious logical conflict with the firm belief that the rich train their kids to be rich and that's why the rich get richer and mostly stay rich.

Those that scratch their way up like my sister are loathe to admit that luck, not smarts or God's favor are the main ingredients in their upward mobility. Of course neither of these two individuals are criminals in the Walls Street model. They both actually worked hard and played by some rules. But both of these types of millionaires share a biosphere killing worldview. EndisNigh brought to our attention here at the Doomstead Diner some quotes from Craig Dilworth in "Too Smart for our Own Good" humanity's basic problem of refusing to recognize that the average human has serious cognitive impairment in dealing with multigenerational biosphere harming technologies and other threats that are not immediate.

The rich are the worst offenders because they have gained a short term, but actually quite temporary and artificial, high standard of living at the expense of everyone, including their own future offspring's health. For the poor and many of us in the middle classes throughout the world, it is not rocket science to know the system cannot be improved by tinkering or minor adjustments here and there. No, the "growth is better forever" insanity must be properly labelled as such.

All this stuff and nonsense the rich have grown so fond of with those euphemistic terms for the use of capital and the role of financialization like "leverage" are all part of a mindset that flat refuses to see how deadly for the human race the embrace of this entire bankrupt paradigm is. Leverage is right up there with "enrichment" of Uranium in ridiculous terms. Uranium is concentrated, not enriched. No one gets rich from concentrating Uranium except some nuclear fuel corporation externalizing costs on we-the-people.

And what, exactly, is "Leverage"? It's a deliberate attempt to ascribe POWER to a financial agency such as a bank, hedge fund, venture capital firm or vulture capital crooks by equating usurious financial tools including fractional reserve banking, derivatives and futures contracts, among other fraudulent mechanisms in the world of finance and credit markets to the torque increase one gets when they increase lever length exerting force over a fulcrum.

It's a totally false metaphor. For every increase in length of the lever, you are actually exerting LESS force for a given distance traveled over the arc the far end of the lever travels in comparison to the short arc length of a short lever. With a long lever, the total arc distance may be several times the arc distance of a short lever. Granted, you can move a bigger weight but there is a trade off. The lever length is not a freebie. You have to make it very strong so it doesn't snap when the force is exerted. You need a way to grasp the lever over a lot of travel on the arc.

The clever rascal economists don't care that their "leverage" lever is a figment of the imagination that is so weak that it it needs the force of a government to keep everyone from using the same scam. Leverage is basically a loan WITHOUT collateral in the service of the upper class.

What's the big deal, you may ask. Economists can't win any Nobel prizes if they can't make up a lot of new formulas and catchy buzzwords for their "profession". Financial bullshit is their beat. Well, they are the spearhead of the elite spear that is buried deep in the biosphere. If we don't pull that spear out, the biosphere is going to get gangrene from an infected open wound or bleed to death.

No, I don't think the spearhead is in the heart (YET). And when I say "we", I include all of the human race. Some will say that there isn't a snowball's chance in hell of getting the elite to change their fatal support for this festering wound.

They've got a pack of funnel tubes all along the wound entrance and are happier than pigs in poop even as the surrounding tissue begins to necrotize. Which brings us to the title of this post and the "bacteria eats all the agar in the petri dish leading to a massive dieoff" view of humanity's fatal flaws.

Are the rich really that stupid? Would all of us here, if we were in the catbird seat, behave exactly the same due to our brain's inability to react to a threat that isn't immediate?

My experience with only two rich people is anecdotal and those two are certainly not part of the decision makers that constantly exert force through their lackeys and counterfeited "leverage" in economic systems to inhibit, not just action to obtain sustainability, but the adoption of the "love and respect of all life" paradigm that delegitimizes their elite worldview.

The elite believe they are in the catbird seat because they deserve to be there. They also believe they are the most intelligent humans on earth and rightfully should make all the most important decisions as to how to preserve the biosphere sustainably. I really do believe that they believe that.

I think you do too. Come on, admit it. We have all sorts of fun deriding the abysmal stupidity of these reptiles but deep down we know they aren't just greedy and selfish; we know they have a plan. We have seen their PR outlets slowly but surely beginning to push the plan. Part of the plan is less people. The elite are cheapskates so they always try to "leverage" whatever scam they are pushing by investing as little capital as possible.

Just killing off the surplus population is extremely expensive and can create major difficulties among your gophers doing the killing when they realize they can just take the NBC filtered bunkers from the 1% if, or when, TSHTF.

No, some finesse is called for. It's probably quite convoluted and complex and I'm not privy to the details. I mention this part of their plan because the other part, bioremediation of the biosphere appears to be absent from their plan. I don't know.

It is my hope that these people in the elite have a solid grasp of the causes and long term effects of the coming environmental collapse. The Chinese leadership appear to take this very seriously with their 5 year plans. Just looking at the huge jumps in wind and solar power far beyond even the 5 year plan proposals is quite positive.

On the other hand, the massive pollution problems in China often pointed to by RE and JoeP along with China's insane decision to build nuclear power plants does not bode well for Homo SAP.

Is this "ring circling" (see bacteria in a petri dish when the agar runs out) dynamic of the 1% going on worldwide, but in secret, because we-the-people don't have tickets to board this boat?

Please follow this sequence of pictures:

A few decades ago things still looked calm to the average person.

Then disturbances sprang up here and there.

Sometimes things got quite turbulent but we were assured it would pass.

Depending on where the average person was on the globe, things looked better in some places and worse in others but this was because we weren't in the catbird seat.

This is the view from the catbird seat.

Doomstead Diner readers have figured out that this is coming. Most people won't see it until it's too late.

Now let's go back to the first photo in the sequence.

This is what we saw decades ago.

This was the view back then from the catbird seat. IOW they knew then and they don't have alzheimers.

This is the hope of the elite; to make it through the turbulence to the, relatively, smooth waters while the biosphere rebounds.

They are right that a reduced population will lower environmental stress but they are wrong to think they can carry the putrid seeds of environmental destruction essential to their world view and not fail in achieving their environmental paradise.

That's why I write this stuff. I hope to convince THEM that their mindset is now, and always has been, the "bacteria eating up all the agar in the petri dish" and there is no way you can put lipstick on that pig.

It is in their best interests to condemn greed and rampant competition for resources now. If they don't, their own little group of pseudo Olympian gods will immediately be at each others throats in the lifeboats after the environmental collapse.

Feel free to pass this on. Maybe, just maybe, some of them will stop they're calm aplomb and assurance about anything and everything like my friend Steve used to have. Maybe they will realize that the environmental collapse threat that they have been aware of long before we were and planned accordingly for is not the the real threat to homo sapiens; their worship of greed and power is.

As in The Lord of the Rings book, they must recognize that the problem is not external to them and they cannot externalize it. They tried and failed to externalize environmental costs.

They tried and failed to provide proper allocation of resources through their usurious leverage based economies.

They must recognize those two failures and the fact that both of them are based on the failure to recognize that egocentrism is a cancer and they, as long as they cling to it, are the cancerous cells that will destroy everything they touch, including themselves. If they accept that, there is hope.

If they don't, then yes, the human bacteria will reduce it's numbers with genocide but the killers will, nevertheless, find themselves, unable to avoid engaging in the same or greater environmental destruction and "king of the hill" competition and warfare.The problem is not lack of agar, it's the ATTITUDE.

The core requirement for human survival is that the parasitic human bacteria MUST modify itself to become symbiotic with the biosphere, period.

The Free Press’ September 28 editorial on the F-35 – which essentially said, learn to live with it— plays into the disinformation campaign that has been waged by politicians and the GBIC.

They consistently talk about “mitigating” the dangers to our area from basing this fighter-bomber in a densely populated neighborhood.But the whole problem is that the dangers cannot be mitigated. That’s not an opinion. That’s a fact.

The reason why the Air Force states that 8,000 people will end up living in a zone that is “incompatible for residential use” is because mitigation is impossible. That’s why they conclude, “land acquisition and relocation is the only alternative.”

The fact that intense noise blasts from existing F-16s cannot be mitigated is the reason why many homes near the airport are now vacant. The noise blast from F-35’s will be 3 to 4 times louder.

Not one of the politicians or the GBIC has offered any facts to dispute the harm to residents that is detailed in both the Air Force and World Health Organization reports. They have chosen to stonewall and refuse to meet with residents in the area.

But extreme noise blasts are not the only problem. Newly designed fighter jets have a very high crash rate during the first years after they become operational. The Air Force has confirmed this.

That’s why a newly designed fighter-bomber has never before been based at a residential airport such as Burlington’s. They have always been based at military bases in remote areas until the bugs have been worked out.

The F-35 is particularly problematic should a crash occur because it is loaded with 18,000 pounds of fuel and is made from highly flammable composite materials–42% by weight–that emit very toxic fumes and fibers when burned. Moreover, the fire produced from composite materials is far different from fire from a burning metal aircraft.

As the Boston Globe reported, Burlington would not have been selected were it not for political pressure from Senator Leahy. He has stated that he believes it is an honor for the Vermont Guard to be the first recipient of the new Joint Strike Fighter.

I support and respect the men and women in the Guard. However, if being the first to have this plane is an honor, it is one that dishonors the people who live near the airport. This is not being a good neighbor. This is not something whose dangers and noise can be “mitigated”. And it’s a strange kind of honor that seeks to have Vermont be the first base for a botched fighter-bomber that Senator John McCain has called “one of the great national scandals.”

I don’t know if it’s a developer’s bonanza, or honor, or pride, or politics that has caused Leahy/Sanders/Welch/Shumlin/Weinberger to act in lockstep, but I am actually shocked at their callousness in failing to protect the children and adults that will be harmed physically, cognitively, and financially.

The Air Force will not be liable for all of these damages, and neither will the politicians. The City of Burlington will be left holding the bag.

As the landlord of the airport, the City of Burlington has the right to prevent its tenant, the Air Force, from basing F-35s on the City’s property. On October 7, the Burlington City Council has the opportunity, the responsibility, and the obligation to act on a resolution to protect the health and welfare of the citizens living near its airport. May they act in a spirit of care and compassion and reason.–Ben Cohen, Burlington

“The numbers were fudged…if the scoring had been done correctly,Burlington would not have been rated higher (than others).”- Boston Globe quoting an anonymous Pentagon official

Of all potential F35 bases, only Burlington basing will have an increased impact on residential land.- Air Force EIS report

Not basing in Vermont is the preferable environmental alternative.- Air Force EIS report

“It would be more costly to do [F35] missions at Burlington… but political promises were made.”- Anonymous Pentagon official

“Putting the F-35 into production years before the first test flight was acquisition malpractice. It should not have been done, OK? But we did it.”

- Frank Kendall, Undersecretary of Defense for Acquisition

“I take seriously allegations that the scoring process may have been flawed.” - Senator Bernie Sanders

ReportEndangered Health: The Threat to Public Health from the Proposed F-35 Basing at Burlington International AirportCurrent scientific consensus confirms that health effects of aviation noise, in both children and adults, are far more severe than the Air Force acknowledges

The F35 isn't simply horrendously noisy; it is even more horrendously dangerous. No, the danger isn't for the pilot; it's for the people that live beneath flight path.

WHY?

Because the pentagon has had a slight "problem" with fighter aircraft that they can never seem to get over. They made the same costly mistake with the P38 Lightning, P47 Thundebolt, F105 fighter/bomber, F4 phantom, F104 Starfighter and a few others. IOW, the NORM for our MIC is to churn out a unresponsive DOGS.

The successful fighters have been the P51 Mustang, F86 Saber Jet and the F14 Tomcat. The F18 hornet that replaced the F14 is cheaper but has never actually been proven superior in a to dog fight with a Russian, European or Chinese equivalent fighter versions.

The P51 outflew the Messerschmitt 109s that were faster but less maneuverable.The Japanese ZERO flew rings around the F6F Hellcats we had in the pacific. We won there because we had more stuff, not because we had better stuff.

The F86 had a kill ration of 11 to one over the Mig 15 it fought with in he Korean War. No fighter aircraft before or since has bested the F86 Saber Jet.

The F14, Tomcat, despite it being rather heavy, had a high survival rate in Vietnam because it had two engines and could usually limp back to the carrier as well as do slightly over 1 to 1 with the Russian fighters of that epoch. The Mig 21 and Mig 23 were, in many ways, as good as anything we had then,

Why did/DOES the MIC make lousy fighters?

Because it is always trying to reach what is known as a multiple role war bird. This never works because ONE role (e.g. Ground attack) ALWAYS compromises the performance characteristics need for the other roles (high altitude intercept and high altitude bombing).

The F104 was designed to fly high and fast and shoot a few on board missles from a long distance. It can't maneuver. So it was useless in Vietnam.

The F105 was a "compromise" between a fighter and a bomber. It could carry a lot of bombs but could not really maneuver. Calling it a fighter was done in a fit of imagination. In Viet Nam, they were affectionately called LEAD SLEDS by their pilots. They got shot down regularly by missiles and were dead meat if a Mig got a hold of them. The F4 phantom was also too heavy and dangerous to land on carriers. The F14, with its swing wings, made carrier landing deaths mostly a thing of the past. The F4 couldn't hold its own against Migs either.

The F-16 supposedly took care of a lot of this stuff because it is a pure fighter (light maneuverable and fast) but it can't carry much weight for bombing and is too hot for accurate ground attack (both of these type roles have been tried unsuccessfully by the Israelis for the F-16 and they have come out looking like idiots - yeah, they destroyed buildings but they couldn't protect Israeli Troops from Hezbollah).

But the MIC keeps trying to get an airplane that can "do it all". And instead of saying, well, that's silly. We will have a heavily armored, slow, ground attack aircraft capable of taking a beating, a bomber that can bomb anything from way up there out of ground fire range with ECM countermeasures for missiles and some stealth thrown in and we will escort the bomber with fighters that are as nimble as rocket powered mosquitos.

No, the B2s are too few. They want a fighter, bomber and a HARRIER CLONE TOO!

On top of screwing up the design (decreased maneuverability throughout the flight envelope and greater vulnerability near the ground) with a lot of added weight from a huge engine needed for large armament loads from missiles to bombs to bullets, the engine had to be EVEN BIGGER and HEAVIER. THAT is why the F-35 is SO NOISY.

They have made a modern day version of the P-47 Thunderbolt. That DOG had such a hoge engine that they ground looped on takeoff regularly because the pilot applied full power before he had enough rudder to counteract torque. They were fast but had the glide path of a rock if the single huge engine failed.

But they crowning folly is wanting a vertical take off and landing fighter aircraft (VTOL). The marines loved the English Harrier Jet because it could hide out in the woods with the troops and help with ground attack. So the pentagon was asked for an American version.

Right, ANOTHER role for an already overtasked aircraft. Which brings me back to Burlington, Vermont.

Those F-35 pilots are going to be REQUIRED to perform VTOL exercises regularly. Yes, the plane has all kinds of computers taking care of the aircraft pitch and bank during these maneuvers but all that goes to HELL when the engine fails.

Right now, if an F-16 flying along at 160 mph plus on final to the normal approach path to Burlington (flying Southeast some mile northwest of the airport), they can put it into the Winooski river and eject just before impact (nobody gets killed).

HOWEVER, if they are doing a VTOL exercise a hundred feet or so over the airport and the engine or the computer fails, it WON'T just drop straight down; it will try to vector this way or that and end up on top of a house next to the airport. When you are at nearly zero forward speed, you aren't just a wingless ROCK, you are a computer controlled loose cannon.

The F-35 will kill people in Vermont. I hope the people of Vermont voice their OUTRAGE against this death machine enough NOW before Senator Leahy has to retire in INFAMY.

In his first independently written apostolic exhortation called “Evangelii Gaudium” (The Joy of the Gospel), Pope Francis calls for a rejection of the “new idolatry of money.” He notes that “the earnings of a minority are growing exponentially, so too is the gap separating the majority from the prosperity enjoyed by those happy few.” He calls for “more politicians who are genuinely disturbed by the state of society, the people, the lives of the poor,” and for the commitment of political and financial leaders to “ensure that all citizens have dignified work, education and healthcare.”

Sanders continues to welcome the Pope’s past passionate criticism of the global financial system, which has plunged more of the world into poverty while benefiting the wealthy few. Sanders commended the Pope. “At a time when the gap between rich and everyone else is growing wider, at a time when Wall Street and large financial institutions are exerting extraordinary power over the American and world economy, I applaud the pope for continuing to speak out on these enormously important issues,” Sanders said. “Pope Francis is reminding people of all walks of life, and all religious backgrounds, that we can and must do better.”

Francis warns that our economic systems will “devour everything which stands in the way of increased profits, whatever is fragile, like the environment, is defenseless before the interests of a deified market.”

Francis broadens the definition of the commandment “thou shalt not kill,” by saying, “today we also have to say ‘thou shalt not’ to an economy of exclusion and inequality. Such an economy kills.” In striking terms he asked “How can it be that it is not a news item when an elderly homeless person dies of exposure, but it is news when the stock market loses 2 points?” He repeated his warning that “Money must serve, not rule.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZvgaMd6GBgQ&feature=player_embeddedAdvancing biological diversity was the path humans were on UNTIL the POWER STRUCTURES in society decided to reverse this trend into the unsustainable direction of REDUCED biological diversity in order to CONTROL humans and increase corporate profits. Greed is bad; greed is destroying the biosphere.

Smile, the billionaires and millionaires are paying less taxes than YOU! :evil4:

Here's just ONE that uses GRAT extensively:Sheldon Adelson

One of his dwellings...

Marina Bay Sands Resort owned by Sheldon Adelson

Socialism FOR THE RICH is the American WAY!Ultra-Wealthy Dodge Billions in Taxes Using "GRAT" Loophole

December 20, 2013 01:06 PM | Permalink | Bookmark and Share A new Bloomberg report describes how billionaires have dodged an estimated $100 billion in gift and estate taxes since 2000, according to the lawyer who perfected the practice.

The trick involves temporarily putting corporate stocks (or similar assets) into a “Grantor Retained Annuity Trust” (GRAT), where the grantor gets the stocks back after two years, plus a small amount of interest, while any appreciation of the stock goes to the grantor’s heirs tax-free.

Because the initial gift has no inherent value (it’s essentially a gift to oneself), there is no gift tax at the time the GRAT is set up. The loophole is that the appreciation of the stock that goes to the heirs is not subject to gift tax either. As a result, extremely wealthy individuals avoid billions of dollars in gift and estate tax.

This is what Sheldon Adelson did (to take just one example) when he put much of his Las Vegas Sands stock in GRATs when the stock had plummeted during the recession. Adelson knew that the stock was likely to rise significantly from that low point. If Adelson had simply given his heirs the stock, the gift tax would have applied to the value of the stock at the time it was given. Or if he bequeathed the stock upon his death, the estate tax would apply.

But by using GRATS, neither the value of the stock at the time it was temporarily put into the GRAT nor the subsequent appreciation was subject to gift or estate tax. See the graphic (at link below) from Bloomberg for how the shelter works :evil4: in practice.

In today’s On the News segment: The super rich have skipped out on paying $100 billion dollars in estate taxes since 2000; Americans are working harder than ever, but most people won't be seeing a larger paycheck; as renewable energy becomes more popular, the oil and gas industry is getting scared; and more.

TRANSCRIPT:

I'm Jim Javinsky - in for Thom Hartmann – on the news…

You need to know this. The super rich have skipped out on paying $100 billion dollars in estate taxes since 2000. And, that incredible number doesn't even factor in the billions that they saved using loopholes like capital gains, or by stashing their money in tax havens around the world.

A new report from Bloomberg News says that special tax loopholes used primarily by the super rich have made the estate tax system “essentially voluntary” for those at the top. Basically, billionaires like Shelly Adelson and the Walton family set up special trust funds, like the Walton-created “grantor-retained annuity trust” or GRAT, in which they stash millions of dollars worth of stock. Once those GRATs expire – typically after two years – the billionaires cash out the stock, keep their original investment, along with a profit, and pass on the balance to their heirs. All the while, avoiding taxes on the whole scheme.

By using these completely legal, but highly unethical, tactics, the super wealthy have stashed away $100 billion in a little over a decade. That amount is enough to pay for every child in our nation to go to preschool for ten years, and it could wipe out the entire first round of sequester cuts.

One hundred billion could have provided a substantial benefit to our nation, and it's only one of many tax loopholes that the super rich use to get out of paying their fair share. The super rich like to call estate taxes “death taxes,” but trust-fund schemes like this that are actually killing investment in our nation. If billionaires want to do business in our great nation, it's about time that they start contributing to the commons that make it possible.

Obama just came out with a bit of Orwell speak. Less than a month after he named Dr. Strangelove Stanley Fischer to the Fed in order to help orchestrate the drive to Nuking Iran, Obama claims that Congress should "give diplomacy a chance" in Iran rather than "adding sanctions"!

Guess what? It's the FEDERAL RESERVE that controls our planet wide banking sanction machinery! It's the FEDERLA RESERVE that will tighten the screws even more on Iran with Stanley Fischer pushing for WAR with Iran.

Dear readers, this is called plausible deniability. It is ALSO evidence that the drive to NUKE IRAN is now entering the BIG PUSH.

This is how this "works":

THE COUNTDOWN TO THE ATTACK:

THREE: Stanley Fischer will wail and moan PUBLICLY about how sanctions on Iran are BAD for the US and diplomacy is the "best" alternative in dealing with Iran.

TWO: A terrorist attack will take place (NOT in Israel or the US) somewhere blaming "unknown" parties. The news will dog the story for weeks until it is REVEALED that "the Iranians DID IT to destroy the US peace initiatives so they could get the bomb!". Scrutiny will reveal this is all bull**** but by then the echo chamber screaming for DEFENSIVE NUCLEAR WAR with IRAN will be in full swing. Obama will ask for calm and diplomacy. The stock market will tank. Iran will be blamed and labeled a THREAT to our ECONOMY.

The Israeli government will PUBLISH statements about "conciliatory gestures" towards Iran.

ONE: Israel will reiterate that, under no circumstances, will they initiate hostilities with IRAN unless they have no other option. Many US politicians will scream that Israel MUST defend itself from this EXISTENTIAL NUCLEAR THREAT!

ZERO: Israel, in full cooperation with the US military, makes a nuclear strike on Iran on a friday afternoon, US EASTERN STANDARD TIME. The plan is for Iran to be decapitated during the weekend and the Russians and Chinese convinced the new status quo is a docile, submissive Iran. That weekend there will be a LOT of coverage in the US of some OTHER news, be it a scandal or a sports event.

A message to the GOONS in the intelligence community that read this. Tell your bosses. This WILL NOT WORK. Sure, you won't get WWIII right away, but YOU WILL GET IT WITHIN A YEAR. Do you want a happy fascist future retirement to look at your newsreels of storm troopers marching with swastika arm bands back in the "glory" days of Nazi Germany? Do you want your kids to look human instead of like grape balls or THIS?

Ce-137 caused mutation - Chernobyl baby

WWIII will bring MORE and MORE of these mutations because it takes about 300 YEARS for ALL the cesium-137 spread all over the planet since they started the atomic explosions to START DEVOLVING our species.

If you NSA and CIA and WHATEVER "intelligence" community goons do not stop this INSANE war on IRAN, you will have destroyed your future gravy train and be held responsible for this human catastrophe for all time to come. DON'T TELL ME THERE IS NOTHING YOU CAN DO TO STOP THIS WAR. You KNOW you can put the fear of God in the Federal Reserve ANY TIME YOU WANT. How about showing some REAL enlightened self interest for a change instead of being stupid ****ing game theory robots for the 1% psychopaths. STOP BEING STUPID!

Strangelove Stanley Fischer is the POINT MAN for this NUCLEAR WAR! STOP HIM!Please pass this on. The planet you save may be your own.